The Elections Department (ELD) has revealed that more than S$9 million was spent by candidates from all participating political parties in last month’s general election.
People’s Action Party (PAP) candidates spent a total of S$6.97 million on the 93 seats they contested, whereas the total expenditure by the 10 opposition parties came to S$2.16 million cumulatively.
This means that there was an increase of 28.1 per cent (S$2 million) in the total spent by all candidates in this year’s general election, compared to GE2015. The total amount spent by candidate in the previous election was S$7.1 million.
Despite an increase in spending from the last election, candidates still spent under the maximum S$4 per voter that is allowed. In fact, the biggest spender, the PAP, only spent S$2.63 per voter.
Following PAP, the next parties to splurge the most are the Workers’ Party (WP) and Progress Singapore Party (PSP) as they spent S$1.21 and S$1.19 per voter respectively.
However, PSP took the first spot among the alternative parties as the biggest spender after the party clocked in total spending of S$781,275. It contested the most number of candidates among the opposition parties, with 24 candidates in nine constituencies.
The WP came next at S$705,647, and it fielded 21 candidates across six constituencies.
On the other hand, parties like the Peoples Voice and Red Dot United spent the least amount per voter, at 13 cents and 10 cents per voter respectively.
The only independent candidate, Mr Cheang Peng Wah, who contested in the single-member constituency of Pioneer, spent S$31,537 on his campaign. This equates to S$1.28 per voter.
A total of 2,651,435 electors were registered in last month’s election.
In GE2015, PAP spent a total of S$5.3 million on the 89 seats it contested. As for the remaining eight opposition parties, they spent an overall of S$1.8 million.
The GE2015 expenditure was nearly 30 per cent more than the S$5.5 million spent in the 2011 General Election.